This book examines the events surrounding the establishment of a settlement in West Africa in 1787, which was later to become Freetown, the present-day capital of Sierra Leone. It outlines the range of ideas and attitudes to Africa which underlay the foundation of the settlement, and the part played by the black settlers themselves, London"s "Black Poor". Was the settlement based on a racist deportation designed to keep Britain white (as some accounts claim), or a voluntary emigration in which the blacks themselves played a part? Once in West Africa, the settlers faced a struggle to survive against often harsh conditions, a struggle which included conflict with slave traders and neighbouring Africans. The settlement"s "failure" is perhaps less surprising than its subsequent re-establishment. The last part of the book looks at the nature of the Sierra Leone Company through the debate over its formation.